“We are formed by what we desire”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“Don't forget this, too: Rumors aren't interested in the unsensational story; rumors don't care what's true.”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“And when you love a book, commit one glorious sentence of it-perhaps your favorite sentence-to memory. That way you won't forget the language of the story that moved you to tears.”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“Gender mattered a whole lot less to Shakespeare than it seems to matter to us.”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“My dear boy, " Miss Frost said sharply. "My dear boy, please don't put a label on me - don't make a category before you get to know me!”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“He was one of those people things came easily to, but he did little to demonstrate that he deserved to be gifted.”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“All I say is: Let us leave les folles alone; let's just leave them be. Don't judge them. You are not superior to them - don't put them down.”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“Most places we leave in childhood grow less, not more, fancy.”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“You can learn a lot from your lovers, but-for the most part-you get to keep your friends longer, and you learn more from them.”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“Novels are just another kind of cross-dressing, aren't they?”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“The time to read Madame Bovary is when your romantic hopes and desires have crashed, and you will believe that your future relationships will have disappointing - even devastating - consequences.”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“It happens to many teenagers-that moment when you feel full of resentment or distrust for those adults you once loved unquestioningly.”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“You live your life at the time you live it -- you don't have much of an overview when what's happening to you is still happening.”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“It doesn't really matter who said it - it's so obviously true. Bevore you can write anything, you have to notice something.”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“It is exhausting to be seventeen and not know who you are.”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“...where our desires "come from"; that is a dark, winding road.”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“...friends were more important than lovers - not least for the fact that friendships generally lasted longer than relationships.”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“...there's a limit to enduring admiration being a substitute for love.”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“I'll bet every fucking one of your angels is going to be terrifying!”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“That's okay," I said. "We're writers. We make things up.”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“By '95 - in New York, alone - more Americans had died of AIDS than were killed in Vietnam.”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“Nostalgia!" Miss Frost cried. "You´re nostalgic!" She repeated. "Just how old are you, William?" She asked.
"Seventeen, " I told her.
"Seventeen!" Miss Frost cried, as if she'd been stabbed. "Well, William Abbott, if you're nostalgic at seventeen, maybe you are going to be a writer!”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“I'm just a woman with a penis!" she would say, her voice rising.”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“Of course, everyone is intolerant of something or someone.”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“people can’t, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents.”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“I'm sure I'll have more to say about the penis word.”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“Bill is a fiction writer, but he writes in the first-person voice in a style that is tell-all confessional; in fact, his fiction sounds as much like a memoir as he can make it sound.”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“Why do you guys want to take all the mystery away? Isn't the mystery an exciting part of sex?”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
“You should wait, William," Miss Frost said. "The time to read Madame Bovary is when your romantic hopes and desires have crashed, and you believe that your future relationships will have disappointing - even devastating - consequences.”
― John Irving, quote from In One Person
John Irving
Born place: in Exeter, New Hampshire, The United States
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“Simplicity is a kind of transparency in which subtle nuances can have outsize effects. When everything is visible and appears to be dumb, that’s when the details take on larger meanings.”
― David Byrne, quote from How Music Works
“Rape culture is an environment in which rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence against women is normalized and excused in the media and popular culture. Rape culture is perpetuated through the use of misogynistic language, the objectification of women’s bodies, and the glamorization of sexual violence, thereby creating a society that disregards women’s rights and safety. Rape culture affects every woman. Most women and girls limit their behavior because of the existence of rape. Most women and girls live in fear of rape. Men, in general, do not. That’s how rape functions as a powerful means by which the whole female population is held in a subordinate position to the whole male population, even though many men don’t rape, and many women are never victims of rape.”
― Rebecca Solnit, quote from Men Explain Things to Me
“you teach men how to treat you.”
― Michelle Stimpson, quote from Boaz Brown
“You told me you’d never let me go,” she
whispered but it was an accusation.
His eyes closed and the pain in them swept
over his entire face and settled there like it would
never, ever leave.
Then he shocked her again. He dropped his
forehead to hers and kept his hands on her.
Something out of her control made her continue.
“You told me,” she said in a shaky voice,
“you’d always take care of me.”
He opened his eyes and stared into hers. He
was so close that if she moved the lower half of
her face forward, less than an inch, she would
have been kissing him.
“You didn’t take care of me,” she murmured,
stating the obvious.”
― Kristen Ashley, quote from Three Wishes
“That must be Dong Zhuo!” cried Zhang Fei. “What’s the use of pursuing Lu Bu? Better seize the chief villain and so eradicate the evil by plucking up its roots.”
― Luo Guanzhong, quote from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Vol. 1: (with footnotes and maps) (Romance of the Three Kingdoms (with footnotes and maps))
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At Swim, Two BoysBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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